


The Warship

by WenchicusThoticus



Series: Serious Fanfiction by Wenchicus Thoticus [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Arranged Marriage, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:54:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29770272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WenchicusThoticus/pseuds/WenchicusThoticus
Summary: The most trivial commonalities can pull them closer together, and the most insignificant differences can push them back apart.A captive!Yue fic.
Relationships: Yue/Zhao (Avatar)
Series: Serious Fanfiction by Wenchicus Thoticus [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1836850
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10
Collections: 2021 Avatar Pro-Shipping Rare Pair Challenge, Captive AUs





	The Warship

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crookedmouth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedmouth/gifts).



The way the flecks of starlight dance upon the ocean’s surface has always soothed his spirit, bringing him moments of tranquility even during the most dire of times. But tonight, the full moon overpowers their shine, and so the sight of the reflections on the water have never been less welcome. The prize he has claimed is not the prize he wants, and so the playful moonbeams make a mockery of him.

The princess looks as though she’s about to jump overboard. Zhao can’t blame her; he knows that he should be proud of what he’s accomplished, yet he feels like a failure. He had set out to utterly destroy the North and all their hope with it, but instead, he is returning home with a foreign bride. To be bound to the people he should’ve conquered.

And why? Because it was more strategic than eliminating the source of their power? He relies on the moon, too, a reflection of the sun. The ships upon which he has spent the better part of his adult life sailing rise and fall on the tide, the ocean’s ebb and flow. His plan would’ve crushed the North into submission, but he can’t say there wouldn’t have been unintended consequences.

Or was it because he had taken pity on them?

The girl — Yue is her name, and she truly is just a girl, just having reached marrying age — starts to climb up on the rail around the side of the boat. Zhao has one of his men stationed outside, keeping an eye on her, but the soldier is too far away to stop her. 

“Don’t,” Zhao cries out. He sprints a few steps across the deck and lunges forward to grab her arm. 

“Let go of me!” Yue protests, futilely trying to yank away from him.

“I’m not letting you jump. You’re far too valuable to me,” he growls, and she glares at him defiantly.

“I wasn’t going to jump,” she pouts. “I only wanted to get a better look at the stars.”

“You can see them fine from here,” he says, and pulls her down. His grasp loosens around her upper arm, but it remains firm enough to keep her in place. “I would know. We sailors use them to navigate.”

“I just like how they look,” she says innocently, “and I like to find the constellations.” When he doesn’t reply, she continues, “Our sailors use them as guides, too, but I’ve never had a use for navigation.”

“Because you’ve never been this far from home, have you?” he asks. His fingers uncurl from around her bicep, and his hand rests there limply.

“I’ve never been outside the tribe before,” she murmurs. Quieter, she adds, “I never imagined my first time would be like this.”

He laughs softly. She tenses as his palm slides along her back and around her waist. He won’t go any further, and he hopes that she’ll take it as the gesture of comfort it’s meant to be. He can’t imagine that he’s as distressed as she about their engagement, but it won’t be easy for him, either. 

In war, he has been taught to crush the enemy, but instead he has made a compromise. He has given the Water Tribe more influence in this arrangement than he or his superiors would like. His people will look down on him for taking a foreign wife, especially one so young, and even if she’s royalty. He had never wanted to be married, tied down in one place; he belongs out exploring the world, learning its mysteries to better claim it for his nation.

The most they can do is learn to get along with each other. Already, it seems as though they might have more common ground than he anticipated.

“I can teach you to navigate by the stars, if you like,” he says, resting his arms on the railing. “That constellation, Dragon’s Brood, is always to the south.” He points in the direction they’re sailing. “That’s where we need to go to get to the Fire Nation.”

“I don’t see it,” she says. Her eyebrows wrinkle in confusion.

“You see how those four bright stars look like a dragon’s tail, curled around her eggs — the dimmer stars?” He makes an arcing motion with his pointer finger.

“Oh, you mean the Freezing Man?” she says.

It’s his turn to be confused. “The what?”

“That’s the hood of his parka, and the dim stars are his face. He’s frowning because he’s still cold,” she says.

Zhao lets out a little “hm.” If they’re calling the constellations by different names, then teaching her to navigate will be more of a challenge than he’d anticipated. He hopes it’s not indicative of the rest of their future together, and once more balks at the thought — he has to spend the rest of his life with this girl.

“What do you call that one?” He points to the one directly in front of him, to the west.

She leans in close to him to see what he’s pointing at, and he forgets to breathe for a moment. Their arrangement could’ve been worse, he supposes. She’s not conventionally attractive by his nation’s standards, but she has a certain grace to her, an exotic allure. 

“That’s the Fishing Boat,” she says, her fingers tracing the mast, then the curve of the boat’s hull.

“Oh, that’s not so different from what we call it,” he laughs. “That’s the Warship.”

He turns to her, and her face saddens. For a moment, they’d reveled in the trivial differences between their nations, not the one that hangs over the world like a black cloud of smoke.

“Whatever you think you know about firebenders, we’re not all as bad as you think,” he says. They’re still close; she hasn’t pulled away from him yet.

“You tried to kill the moon,” she reminds him bluntly.

“And maybe that was a mistake. Maybe you were a better deal,” he says, even though he’s not sure if he believes it.

Her features darken. She’s his prize, and he is free to do with her whatever he wishes, but that’s not in his best interest. Though it’s tempting to antagonize her — it would be so easy, with the power he holds over her — if they’re really going to spend the rest of their lives together, then he doesn’t want her to hate him.

He leans in and grazes her cheek with his lips, planting a kiss on the corner of her mouth. Again, she doesn’t pull away, but she doesn’t return it, either.

“It’s late,” he says. “Get some rest, Princess.”


End file.
